


Whispers In The Dark

by Umbral_Wings



Series: Fallen [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Dark and Light, Gen, Horror, Psychological Trauma, Violence, supernatural (no not the show), this fic has it all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-22 08:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12477456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbral_Wings/pseuds/Umbral_Wings
Summary: Broken and hopeless, the Sole Survivor makes a deal bound in something much more precious than blood.The friends and companions they make along the way come to care about her despite everything and hope that, one day, they can cure what cannot be seen.





	1. Gebo

**Author's Note:**

> This story started out very differently. But then this happened. I don't know what's coming either.

Shock... Terror... Horror... Despair... These were all that she had left. She lay curled up on the lift platform of Vault 111; first she'd screamed until she thought her lungs were going to collapse, then she cried -wailed- until she could cry no longer and her head ached mercilessly. Now she simply lay there, keening quietly, her bloodshot eyes wide and unseeing and her mind fuzzed and absently flying in countless, incomprehensible directions. It didn't feel real, none of it. Not watching her husband's skull and brains and blood splattering all over the inside of the cryo pod, not watching her son being taken by faceless, white suited strangers, not the horrible scarred man that looked right at her with those cold, unfeeling eyes. She could still hear the gunshot in her head: she clapped her hands over her ears and started to retch, spilling the contents of her stomach for the third time that day.

Adeline did not move from that spot as the sun climbed higher in the sky, the passing hours punctuated by her occasional bouts of tired sobbing and long stretches of silence. Had she been of sound mind perhaps she would have noticed that, strangely, nobody -nothing- had been drawn by the noise even after the sun began to set. Almost like there was nothing nearby -or maybe something was keeping all the nasty things at bay.  
Something much worse than them.

Darkness fell across the Commonwealth and a steady breeze began to blow. She was getting cold and had been hungry for hours. Her thoughts had finally begun to cohere and she knew she had to find her son. A new wave of hopelessness washed over her: was he even still alive? Who took him? Why? Where could he possibly be in this charred, dead world? Fresh tears began to roll down her face.

"What do I do?" She sobbed, "What do I do? I can't do this alone."

 _You are not alone._ a voice whispered, seemingly on the wind and in her head at the same time. 

She bolted upright and quickly looked around -there was nobody in sight.

"Wh- who's there?" she stammered.

 _I am._ the voice replied matter-of-factly, _Look, I haven't the patience for the whole you're-not-real-yes-I-am conversation so let's just skip to the part where I make you an offer._

"What?" she replied uncertainly, "what offer?"

_I need a body, you obviously need help. Let me hitch a ride until I can find a more suitable... Shell... and I'll help you in combat and teach you what I know in the interim. Sound good?_

"I'm losing my mind." she stated.

_I think you lost that earlier. So do we have a deal? I really don't want to have to make this agreement with one of the raiders up the road nor the other ones, really._

Adeline thought for a long moment -what did she have to lose?

"So you would what, take over my body?"

_Only when necessary. I don't rightly like the idea of driving somebody else's meat suit around._

"You'll help me find my son?"

_Yes._

She considered her options, mulling over the strange voice's words. The voice remained silent, apparently allowing her time to think.

"Deal." she answered, "So... What do I have to do?"

There was a brief pause, _Hold still, I suppose._

She waited, holding her breath, unsure and afraid. Nothing happened; She looked around; nothing seemed to change. A couple of minutes passed and she began to think that maybe she really had lost her mind and the whole thing had been in her head. She crossed her arms over her knees and rested her chin on them and closed her eyes.

The wind suddenly changed direction: Adeline opened her eyes.

She screamed.

All the shadows cast by the moon's light had become jagged, reaching out to her from impossible angles, curling towards her like massive ebony claws. She tried to scramble away but the shadows were upon her in moments and then there was only darkness.

She dreamed of alien skies.  
She dreamed of floating mountains and shattered moons.  
She dreamed of heavens and hells.


	2. Algiz

Adeline woke up to bleary rays of sunlight pouring in through the windows. She squinted against the offending light and rolled over in her bed, wondering why Nate left the damn curtains open last night.

Nate.

Realization crashed through her like thunder and her eyes shot open. She sat up and looked around: she was in her own (painfully empty) bed, in her own house, wrapped in a threadbare blanket. All the glass in the windows was broken, replaced with a few wooden boards haphazardly tacked into place. The rest of the place didn't seem much better, the once clean white walls were now mouldering and ruined, the ceiling was all but gone and what remained of the roof was riddled with holes. She sighed heavily, a fresh pang of loss and sadness snaking its way through her chest and she tried to swallow down the lump forming in her throat and failed, holding her face in her hands and crying. The approaching sound of hovering and clanking barely registered in her mind.

"Mum?" a familiar accented voice called quietly from the doorway, "Are you alright?"

"Codsworth??" She gasped, hopping out of bed -she couldn't believe it!

"Good morning, mum!" he chimed, bobbing happily, "How are you feeling? You seemed rather... Out of sorts last night, you didn't even seem to recognize me. I know it's been a long time but-"

"How long has it been?"

"A little over two hundred and ten years, give or take a few dings to the old chronometer."

She was agog -two hundred years?? That couldn't be right. Her chest felt tight. 

"I... Can't believe you're still here..." she said quietly.

"Well of course I'm still here. Surely you didn't think a little radiation would deter the pride of General Atomics International? But you seem the worse for wear. Best not let the hubby see you in that state, eh? Where is sir, by the way?"

Adeline felt her throat tighten and the beginnings of tears well up in her eyes.

"He's... In a better place now... They came into the vault... And they killed him and they took Shaun..." she answered, unable to say more, the tears were flowing in earnest now.

"Oh, mum," Codsworth replied, "these... These terrible things you're saying. I know! You need a distraction from this dire mood, shall we search the neighborhood together? Sir and young Shaun may turn up yet."

Adeline took a deep, weary breath and wiped her eyes, "Sure, Codsworth, lead the way."

Together they searched the neighborhood finding only the battered, reeking remains of bloatflies and radroaches in a few of the houses, the handful of which that still remained standing appeared to be picked clean of anything useful. When they were finished, Codsworth turned to her, hovering a little lower to the ground.

"They're really gone aren't they?" he asked, sounding glum. 

"Thank you for trying. I know Shaun is still out there -I can feel it. I have to find him." She responded.

"Perhaps you could ask around in Concord? Be careful though mum, they're a bit... rough."

"There's still people alive in Concord?"

"Yes -and last time I ventured over there they only pummeled me with rocks a few times before I had to leave."

"I'm going to go there then. Thanks again, Codsworth."

"Proud to serve, mum! I shall remain here and hold down the fort."

Adeline decided to swing by her house before she left, hoping to find some supplies before heading out. What she saw (and subsequently missed the first time around given the state she was in) made her stop just inside the doorway: laid out all over the counters and table, which had been moved into the kitchen for some reason, were a bunch of materials, supplies and random items. She turned to the robot, who was making his way over.

"Did you do all this?" she asked.

"Oh. No mum, you did. You spent most of last night boarding up the windows and walls and collecting all these things -don't you remember?"

She felt her stomach do a little confused flip: she didn't even remember walking here from the vault.

"Oh... Yeah." she stammered, "I must've just been really tired last night heh heh."

Codsworth bobbed his agreement and went off to do... Codsworth things, leaving Adeline to herself. She perused the items she'd apparently gathered -there was so much: food, stimpaks, chems, random junk, clothes, a switchblade in relatively good condition, ammo and... She stared in disbelief at the gleaming metal piled neatly on the table; three large bars of gold. Where the hell had those come from? She pinched the bridge of her nose, shutting her eyes. How had she done all this in one night and not remember any of it? Her thoughts drifted back to yesterday... The voice in the wind, the shadows, the dreams.  
She shook the thoughts away -she'd just had a nervous breakdown, that's all, a stress-induced delirium followed by some kind of fugue state. Keep it together, Adeline. Steeling herself, she gathered up the things she thought she'd need and headed out.

 

Adeline walked cautiously down the road, even more so when she came across a dead man and the corpse of a mangy, malnourished dog at the other end of the bridge leading from Sanctuary. She searched the body for anything useful and, stifling a gag, pulled a tire iron from the dead dog's side and continued on. Not long after, a friendly German shepherd dog greeted her with a cheerful bark, as if to say 'Hi, human! You look lost and I help' and for the first time since she woke up, she felt a little warmth in her chest. The dog seemed to want to tag along and so together they traveled onward. 

__--*°*--__

Adeline heard the sound of gunfire echoing through the streets of Concord, punctuated by the sound of some kind of heavily modified, amplified laser rifle. There were shouts and cursing and the occasional scream of agony. The dog at her side tensed, growling quietly. Fear shot through her and she crouched low, keeping close to the walls and getting closer to get a better look.

There was a man in a long coat standing at the balcony of the old museum -the owner of the unusual laser weapon- shooting at a band of filthy people in tattered clothes and rusty armor. What the hell was going on? She turned to the dog and told him to stay then crept closer, hunkering down behind a burned-out truck. 

Whatever guns the people on the street were using must have been of poor quality or maybe their aim was just terrible as it seemed like the man on the balcony was mostly unscathed whereas he was picking them off one by one with relative ease. She watched, enthralled, at the battle before her until one of the shots fired by the (raiders that dark voice called them raiders) people on the ground hit its mark, hittting the rifleman in the arm. She gave a loud yelp in surprise, drawing the attention of two of the people on the street. The one closest (she thought it was a woman) leveled their shotgun at her and she barely had enough time to duck out of the way before the old truck's hood was peppered with buckshot.

Adeline cursed and drew her 10mm, heart thumping in her chest. She popped over the hood and fired but the shot went wide and embedded in the brick wall behind the attacker. She ducked as a second round of lead shot slammed into the truck and the street, kicking up pieces of asphalt. She barely had time to react when another attacker came sprinting around the truck's bed, yelling and swinging a tire iron at her head. She put her right arm up to block and shot with her left, a bolt of nearly blinding pain ripped through her arm at the same time the man in front of her crumpled to the ground, gurgling and clutching his throat as blood jetted from his neck. She fell on her back in time to see the woman with the shotgun coming around the truck and with reflexes she didn't know she had Adeline shot the woman through the jaw, her brains erupting from the top of her head in a thick red slurry and she fell backwards in a heap. Adeline suddenly saw Nate in her mind; his head jerking to the side, the splatter, the flash from the gun.

She panicked, unable to control her breathing and scooted up against the truck, holding her right arm to her chest. There was yelling a ways behind her and more bullets punched into the truck. A thought crossed her mind with terrifying clarity: I can't do this. I'm going to die here and my baby will be lost forever.

 

__--*°*--__

Preston was convinced he and the people he'd sworn (and ultimately failed) to protect were going to die here at the hands of these damned raiders. He waa ready to make his last stand: if he was going down he was going to take as many of those bastards with him as he could. Then there were gunshots farther down the road. He quickly reloaded and recovered, binding his arm with a bandana as best he could, training his laser musket over the railing just in time to see a woman in a bright blue suit (a vault dweller??) with a pistol in each hand rising from the cover of the truck down the road. He watched her aim and there was the loud crack of both guns firing simultaneously and the two raiders closest to her dropped lifelessly to the ground. Wasting no time she dropped and rolled to the right as several bullets whizzed through the air where she'd been while he took out a couple raiders of his own, sending searing bolts of energy through them with his trusty rifle. The woman trained her sights on two more raiders, there was another loud report and they fell dead; Preston fired off a shot at the raider closest to him, being rewarded with a smoking pile of ash. He smiled. The last eight raiders were dealt with quickly thanks to Adeline and Preston's deadly, incidental co-op. When the smoke cleared, he called down to her, beseeching her to help finish off the raiders inside. A long moment passed and she said not a word, merely nodding, then picked up the laser musket lying on the steps and went inside. He was elated -looked like his luck was finally turning around. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed. I know this chapter didn't start off all action-y but I'd like to touch on the major quests and my favorites etc etc. For because plot.
> 
> As always, feedback is appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> Those of you who have read my original novels can probably guess what's going on.  
> Heh. 
> 
> As always, comments and feedback are welcomed, encouraged and much appreciated.


End file.
